Preparation

Before you listen

Comprehension Task

Business Notes

In the final video Sarah starts her first day at WebWare and Philip and Marcia show her around the office. Sarah is surprised to find that she doesn’t have to hot desk. Hot desking is the practice of using any available desk at work, instead of having a desk assigned to you and is quite common in UK companies. It is often associated with flexible working and work-life balance, two buzz words in corporate life these days.

Flexible working is a phrase that describes any working pattern adapted to suit the needs of the employee.

Common types of flexible working are:

part-time: working less than the normal hours, perhaps by working fewer days per week

flexi-time: choosing when to work (there's usually a core period during which you have to work)

compressed hours: working your agreed hours over fewer days

staggered hours: different starting, break and finishing times for employees in the same workplace

job sharing: sharing a job designed for one person with someone else

home working: working from home

Transcript

Philip Hart: Sarah! Good to meet you again! And welcome on board!

Sarah Timms: Thanks Philip, I’m very pleased to be here.

Philip Hart: I hope you enjoyed your holiday – where did you go?

Sarah Timms: I went to Thailand... it was lovely - great beaches and lovely food...

Philip Hart: Lucky you! It’s time for hard work now, though!

Sarah Timms: I’m ready for it!

Marcia Boardman: Let me show you to your office...

Sarah Timms: I didn’t know I’d have my own office! So you don’t hot desk here?

Marcia Boardman: Well, most people do – as you can see - but we thought you’d need all your own private space...

Sarah Timms: Yes, especially if you’re meeting clients directly...

Marcia Boardman: But the atmosphere is actually quite informal because it’s open plan.

Sarah Timms: That’s good – I like that – you definitely get the sense of everyone being really busy!

Philip Hart: Yes, they are – I hope!

Marcia Boardman: So – this is your space!

Sarah Timms: Wow! Great – lots of space! My last office was much smaller...

Philip Hart: How many people did you work with there?

Sarah Timms: I had a team of three.

Philip Hart: Well here you’ll have six people under you. We’ll introduce you to your sales team after lunch.

Sarah Timms: Hmmm – that sounds good. What do you usually do for lunch?

Marcia Boardman: Some people bring it in, but there’s a canteen on the ground floor – the food’s actually quite good, and pretty cheap!

Sarah Timms: Great.

Philip Hart: Now then, I’ll tell you about your schedule – there’s a sales and marketing meeting every Monday, as well as a meet-up with the various heads of department on Thursday afternoons, just so we know what we’re doing...

Marcia Boardman: Other than that, how you organise your time is up to you...

Hello Kirk,
One of the questions in TASK 1 is to decide if '' Marcia eats lunch in the canteen '' true or false.
If we click the False Option, our answer becomes wrong. In the text, Marcia just gives some information about the canteen however, she does not say she eats in the canteen.
And if the answer to the question is True Option, how can we understand by reading the text that Marcia eats lunch in the canteen?
This is what anhiRivero wants to ask.

The question requires a certain degree of interpretation, I agree, but I think the 'True' answer is justified for two reasons.

First, while it is possible that Marcia is merely relating what she has heard from others, it would be an odd way to do this. Normally we would add something to make it clear that the opinion is not our own: 'supposedly quite good', 'quite so, so I've heard', 'apparently quite good' etc. The fact that she does not add any kind of caveat like this suggests that this is based on her own experience.

Second, note the question which Marcia is asked: What do you usually do for lunch? This is not a general question about the canteen but a question about Marcia's habits and so her answer describes her typical behaviour.

I agree, as I said, that there is room for interpretation here, but I think the answer is justified.

In most offices where there are many people who work there, each person has their own desk. In an office where people hot desk, they don't have a desk that they always use. They use different desks on different days or for different purposes.